There is a common thread, one could call it global, that laws, customs, beliefs and faiths are honored more by their breach than by their observance.
Humanity is universally perverse and adverse to instruction, direction, authority and written or oral pre and proscription. It is a trait shared by many animal species.
As such, it may be an essential component of evolution. Evolution is not always beneficial.
A lot did happen between WWII (when the Japanese encampments occurred) & Obama got elected (first non-white to become President). During that time we had made steady progress towards inclusion, equal rights & democracy for all & improving the living standards of Americans. We still had a long ways to go, especially regarding economic justice, but we were moving in the right direction. It is important to keep this in mind & not assume it's been a straight line from the beginning.
Tremendous disparity in wealth & power, which began emerging during the Reagan administration, accelerated by the fascism, bigotry, brutality & tyranny under Trump, has sharply reversed our course & set us back to where we were long ago, heading towards medieval-like serfdom for the vast majority of citizens. I don't appreciate it when people say we've always been terrible, or there's no difference between the left/Democrats & the right/Republicans. We must recognize sharp distinctions among policies & improvements & deteriorations in trends over time, or many people will feel resigned to accept our lot & believe it is futile to even try changing our system. We've done it before & we can do it again. We must do it again: put in what effort we can to overcome this tyranny & injustice & take ourselves to a much better place than we've ever been.
One of the biggest problems we have in this country is the lack of history education. I took AP US history in high school and still didn't learn the truth. I had no idea what the real history was and there was no internet back then to research it myself. Library books were often ancient or told the same lies.
There is no excuse today when the history of all of humanity is sitting right there in your phone. Luckily my daughter learned a bit more of the truth in high school. I still had to correct a lot of things she learned though.
Until we make serious changes in how history is taught, we're going to remain in this never ending white narcissistic patriarchy. I'm proud that Illinois now requires that black and lgbt history be taught in schools. But we can do even better than that. The uneducated masses are extremely easy to manipulate. History knowledge is a weapon.
Thank you for this piece. It's infuriating to see "this isn't my America." Yes. It is.
White people will always say: "There is no systemic racism in America". BS! Once again, when you read Qasim's articles, you learn real world facts. Horrible facts about horrible white people! Full disclosure: I am white! But I have never subscribed to ugly theories that People of Color were "less tha" or didn't belong. Thank you, Qasim, for educating us & giving us the facts!
People must walk around with blinders on if they think there is no systematic racism in the USA - or sexism for that matter. Imagine how much progress could be made if the energy used to deny reality could be used to fix the “isms”!
Bullseye again. The Founding Fathers were land owning elitists. Just like The Bourgoise were the force behind the French Revolution, not the dirt poor.
A long history of Wealthy White Men holding on to power.
And German speaking citizens were also detained along with Italian Americans. We were at war with the birth countries or the nations of someone’s heritage. Regardless, this is not ok. Please note the blue eyed, blondness of German speakers did NOT stop them from being detained. When lawlessness rules, NO ONE IS SAFE.
All representatives of the Axis Powers were under surveillance if not detention during WWII - except for the entrenched, embedded, fascist fifth column.
I was going to comment about this as well. But the numbers of Germans and Italians who got picked up were far fewer than that of the Japanese (and other Asians). I'm glad to see someone else recognize this though.
At the time, Italians weren't even considered white. My dad grew up in the 30s and 40s and faced a lot of discrimination. His parents refused to teach him Italian because they were afraid of not assimilating. Rather than learn from this history, a LOT of Italian Americans have decided that they will turn around and hate on the people who are discriminated against nowadays, including my dad.
Italian Americans really need to get their act together. It's embarrassing, at least to me.
I grew up with so much casual, careless bigotry and racism that even with my mother acting as a forceful countervailing opinion much of the crude language remained in my brain for decades. Post WWII almost all European DPs fleeing the continent's wreckage were disparaged and assigned dismissive nicknames. Even, or especially, the whitest northern Europeans who had been occupied and enslaved by their local fascists were regarded with suspicion. The war seemed to unlock and legitimize hateful fear.
The racism and bigotry that existed in the past, and still does today, in this country of multiple religions and ethnicities, is totally disgusting, despicable and deplorable. Especially incomprehensible are those who are religious and spout words of their believe in a god. Do they think their god would condone such reprehensible behavior and actions?
Ramadan Mubarak Qasim
Thank you for another well written piece. (It isn’t better in Australia.) 💚🌺🇦🇺
There is a common thread, one could call it global, that laws, customs, beliefs and faiths are honored more by their breach than by their observance.
Humanity is universally perverse and adverse to instruction, direction, authority and written or oral pre and proscription. It is a trait shared by many animal species.
As such, it may be an essential component of evolution. Evolution is not always beneficial.
A lot did happen between WWII (when the Japanese encampments occurred) & Obama got elected (first non-white to become President). During that time we had made steady progress towards inclusion, equal rights & democracy for all & improving the living standards of Americans. We still had a long ways to go, especially regarding economic justice, but we were moving in the right direction. It is important to keep this in mind & not assume it's been a straight line from the beginning.
Tremendous disparity in wealth & power, which began emerging during the Reagan administration, accelerated by the fascism, bigotry, brutality & tyranny under Trump, has sharply reversed our course & set us back to where we were long ago, heading towards medieval-like serfdom for the vast majority of citizens. I don't appreciate it when people say we've always been terrible, or there's no difference between the left/Democrats & the right/Republicans. We must recognize sharp distinctions among policies & improvements & deteriorations in trends over time, or many people will feel resigned to accept our lot & believe it is futile to even try changing our system. We've done it before & we can do it again. We must do it again: put in what effort we can to overcome this tyranny & injustice & take ourselves to a much better place than we've ever been.
Thank you for the historical timeline of racism. So very important that young people know the truth.
One of the biggest problems we have in this country is the lack of history education. I took AP US history in high school and still didn't learn the truth. I had no idea what the real history was and there was no internet back then to research it myself. Library books were often ancient or told the same lies.
There is no excuse today when the history of all of humanity is sitting right there in your phone. Luckily my daughter learned a bit more of the truth in high school. I still had to correct a lot of things she learned though.
Until we make serious changes in how history is taught, we're going to remain in this never ending white narcissistic patriarchy. I'm proud that Illinois now requires that black and lgbt history be taught in schools. But we can do even better than that. The uneducated masses are extremely easy to manipulate. History knowledge is a weapon.
Thank you for this piece. It's infuriating to see "this isn't my America." Yes. It is.
So very true. I thought for years what a specious statement that is.
White people will always say: "There is no systemic racism in America". BS! Once again, when you read Qasim's articles, you learn real world facts. Horrible facts about horrible white people! Full disclosure: I am white! But I have never subscribed to ugly theories that People of Color were "less tha" or didn't belong. Thank you, Qasim, for educating us & giving us the facts!
People must walk around with blinders on if they think there is no systematic racism in the USA - or sexism for that matter. Imagine how much progress could be made if the energy used to deny reality could be used to fix the “isms”!
You are so right!
Can you talk about the Army clause , A constitutional protection , Scott Leavy wrote about yesterday .
Bullseye again. The Founding Fathers were land owning elitists. Just like The Bourgoise were the force behind the French Revolution, not the dirt poor.
A long history of Wealthy White Men holding on to power.
Very few people know it (or refuse to acknowledge it) but some Italian-American were detained during WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Italian_Americans
And German speaking citizens were also detained along with Italian Americans. We were at war with the birth countries or the nations of someone’s heritage. Regardless, this is not ok. Please note the blue eyed, blondness of German speakers did NOT stop them from being detained. When lawlessness rules, NO ONE IS SAFE.
All representatives of the Axis Powers were under surveillance if not detention during WWII - except for the entrenched, embedded, fascist fifth column.
I was going to comment about this as well. But the numbers of Germans and Italians who got picked up were far fewer than that of the Japanese (and other Asians). I'm glad to see someone else recognize this though.
At the time, Italians weren't even considered white. My dad grew up in the 30s and 40s and faced a lot of discrimination. His parents refused to teach him Italian because they were afraid of not assimilating. Rather than learn from this history, a LOT of Italian Americans have decided that they will turn around and hate on the people who are discriminated against nowadays, including my dad.
Italian Americans really need to get their act together. It's embarrassing, at least to me.
I grew up with so much casual, careless bigotry and racism that even with my mother acting as a forceful countervailing opinion much of the crude language remained in my brain for decades. Post WWII almost all European DPs fleeing the continent's wreckage were disparaged and assigned dismissive nicknames. Even, or especially, the whitest northern Europeans who had been occupied and enslaved by their local fascists were regarded with suspicion. The war seemed to unlock and legitimize hateful fear.
Thank you for making us aware of this. I only knew about the Japanese internments.
Many years ago there a pro footbal player, Gino Marchitti (?) who talked about the impact it had on his family.
The racism and bigotry that existed in the past, and still does today, in this country of multiple religions and ethnicities, is totally disgusting, despicable and deplorable. Especially incomprehensible are those who are religious and spout words of their believe in a god. Do they think their god would condone such reprehensible behavior and actions?